Viewing Local Variables in Spyder's Variable Explorer

Question

I'm new to python and am using Spyder's IDE. One feature I appreciate about it is it's variable explorer. However, based on some research, I found that it only shows global variables. A workaround that I found for that is by using the inspect module:

import inspect

local_vars = {}

def main():
    global local_vars
    a = 2
    b = 4
    c = a+b
    local_vars = inspect.currentframe().f_locals
    return c

main()

This works well, however, I have other functions that are called from within main() and I'd like to see those variables in the variable explorer as well. I mimicked what was done for the variables in the main function and the dict does not appear. I noticed that when I disable the setting to "exclude unsupported data types" in Spyder's variable explorer options, the second dict appears with the right size attribute, however, I am unable to open/view it. Any ideas on a possible work around? This is my first time posting BTW.

Thanks!!

---

Here is a working example of my issue and I've traced it down to pylab subplots.

import inspect, pylab

mainVars = {}

def main():
    global mainVars

    a = 1
    b = 2

    fig = pylab.figure()
    subPlot = fig.add_subplot(211)    ## line of interest

    pylab.close('all')

    mainVars = inspect.currentframe().f_locals

main()

When the line of interest is commented out, the dict is created successfully and can be viewed. It appears that the object created using fig.add_subplot() is not being handled properly by the dict. It seems to be an unsupported datatype.

Hope this helps clarify the issue.

Thanks again.

Answer 1

To view the contents of local variables when some of them are unsupported, you have to follow these steps:

1. Go to the options menu of the Variable Explorer (the last icon from left to right on it).

2. Select the option called Exclude unsupported data types.

Then you'll see all local variables saved in the f_locals dict, even if you're unable to double click on it.